


Family Reunion

by CrimsonFandomTrash



Series: Detroit: Become Human Stuff - HankCon & Reed900 Hell [22]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Cat Dad Gavin Reed, Cats, Deviant Upgraded Connor | RK900, Elijah Kamski & Gavin Reed are Siblings, Family Reunions, Gavin Reed Being Less of an Asshole, Gay Disaster Gavin Reed, Gen, Good Elijah Kamski, M/M, Melodrama, Sappy, Self-Hatred, Trans Gavin Reed, Trans Male Character, Upgraded Connor | RK900 Has a Different Name, Why isn't that a tag?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 02:41:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17153774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrimsonFandomTrash/pseuds/CrimsonFandomTrash
Summary: January 15th, 2040   11:25 AMThere were a lot of things Bryan shouldn’t do.He shouldn’t slip Domino and Ash an extra treat when Gavin wasn’t looking. He shouldn’t throw away entire cartons of cigarettes, and then play innocent when Gavin would tear through the apartment looking for them. He shouldn’t keep a canister of decaf coffee hidden in the back of the pantry to make whenever Gavin mentioned wanting the beverage past eight PM.He also shouldn’t be standing on Elijah Kamski’s front doorstep, but there he is.





	Family Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> RK900 is referred to as Bryan and Nines here, so be aware of that.   
> Gavin and Elijah are step-brothers, in case you're wondering. Gavin's mother married Elijah's father, but the marriage only lasted a year before they divorced. Gavin and Elijah remained inseparable, though, until years later when Gavin stopped talking to most people, convinced that everyone should hate him.   
> Also, don't @ me but Gavin Reed is a trans man.

**_January_ ** _ 15th,  _ **_2040_ ** _   11:25  _ **_AM_ **

  There were a lot of things Bryan shouldn’t do.

  He shouldn’t slip Domino and Ash an extra treat when Gavin wasn’t looking. He shouldn’t throw away entire cartons of cigarettes, and then play innocent when Gavin would tear through the apartment looking for them. He shouldn’t keep a canister of decaf coffee hidden in the back of the pantry to make whenever Gavin mentioned wanting the beverage past eight PM.

  He also shouldn’t be standing on Elijah Kamski’s front doorstep, but there he is. 

  He’s already rung the doorbell before the guilt sets in, wondering if he should run. This isn’t any of his business. Gavin certainly won’t be happy with him when he finds out Nines has been poking around where he shouldn’t be. He should go home. He should lea-

  He doesn’t get to finish that thought before the door swings open. Another android stands there in front of him, a girl. She has blonde hair worn in a side braid, and blue eyes. “Hello.” She greets him with a smile. “Can I help you?”

  “I would like to speak with Mr. Elijah Kamski.” He replies, feet shuffling where he stands nervously. “Is he home?”

  Her LED spins yellow for a few moments. “Can I ask what you wish to speak with him about?”

  “I’m in contact with a family member of his.” He answers shortly. She nods, and steps to the side.

  “Please, come in and make yourself at home.” He walks in, and she closes the door, then walks over to a different one leading to another room before she pauses and says, “I’ll let him know you’re here.” And with that, she disappears into the next room.

  Of course, he doesn’t sit down. He looks around the room. A couple of chairs, and a tree in the corner. Some weird decorations. A scan of the larger than life picture on the wall tells him what he already knows; Elijah Kamski, born July 17th, 2002, Former CEO of CyberLife Inc. Alive. There’s a much smaller picture of him on one of the other walls, depicting him next to a woman. Amanda Stern, born May 14th, 1978, died on February 23rd, 2027. She was an AI professor at the University of Colbridge. 

  Not too long later, the girl (RT600 Model, Registered name: Chloe) comes back into the room from the door she’d entered, hands behind her back. “Elijah will see you now.”

  She gestures into the room she’d emerged from, and so Nines walks in. Chloe follows behind him and shuts the door when they’re in the room.

  Mr. Kamski is sat in a chair across the room, the distance between them filled by a crimson swimming pool. A few other androids, an identical looking but lesser model than Chloe, sit around the room talking amongst themselves.

  Upon looking up from his phone, Elijah looks at him and stands, squinting his eyes. “Connor?”

  Bryan shakes his head. “Connor is my brother, the RK800 who was here with Lieutenant Anderson during the Revolution. My name is Bryan. I’m an RK900.”

  Elijah walks over, speaking as he does. “I didn’t know your model existed.”

  “I’m the only one. The rest of my model and Connor’s were destroyed before the end of the Revolution.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Kamski says. He stops in front of Bryan and looks him over a few moments, no doubt trying to see if there were any differences between him and Connor. If he noticed any, he keeps them to himself. “How can I help you, Bryan?”

  “I’m associated with a family member of yours,” Bryan replies. 

  “Did someone die?”

  “No, nothing like that.” He answers. “He merely wishes to get in contact with you again.”

  Elijah looks confused. “Who?”

  “Mr. Gavin Reed.”

  Kamski noticeably stills at the mention of Gavin’s name. After a few moments, he shakes his head. “No, you must be mistaken.” He says. “My brother doesn’t like me. Or androids. You must have the wrong Gavin Reed.”

  Bryan chooses to ignore that statement. “He left a message for you last year on your answering machine, but you never called back.”

  “I don’t check my answering machine very often… or ever.” He rubs at the back of his neck sheepishly, eyes downcast. 

  “Would you like to hear the message? I have it recorded in my memory.”

  Elijah looks back up from the floor, hesitates for a few moments. “Sure.” He replies.

  The sound of Gavin’s voice coming from Bryan’s mouth the next moment disturbs even him a little, but nonetheless, he plays the recording.

  “Hey. Bro, it’s, uh, it’s Gavin. I just wanted to see how you were doing. Fucking fabulously, I’m guessing.” Past Gavin had stopped there to scoff and take a drag off a cigarette. Nines cuts out the pause and continues with the message. “I also wanted to apologize. You helped me when no one else in our shitty fucking family would, and I just… shut you out. It was wrong, and… I hope you can forgive me. Wouldn’t be surprised or pissed off if you didn’t, though… I’m sorry, Eli.”

  And then the pair of them stand there in silence, while Elijah soaks in that information, and Bryan patiently waits. “I haven’t heard his voice in years…” Elijah finally says after a few moments. The silence stretches once more before he looks up, and they make eye contact. “He still wants to see me?”

  “He does,” Nines confirms. “I live with him. He talks about you, sometimes.” 

  “Holy shit. Gavin Allen fucking Reed living with an android.” Kamski laughs, the idea of that obviously amusing to him. His face falls solemn once he’s done having a chuckle over the absurdity of Gavin and Bryan living together. “I’d like to go see him. Does he work today?”

  “We have the day off,” Nines says. “He might not be awake when we get there, but he shouldn’t sleep for too long after our arrival.”

  “Let me get ready, and we can go.” Elijah starts walking towards another door in the room, presumably his bedroom. “Feel free to make yourself at home, I shouldn’t be too long.”

  After scanning and rescanning things in the room, and pacing around a little, Elijah finally walks back into the room in a different set of clothes, his hair pulled back into a bun, and nerd-frame glasses. “Ready when you are, Mr. Kamski.”

  “Please, call me Elijah.” Elijah corrects him. Nines updates that information in his database. “I’m ready.”

___________________

 

  Strangely, Nines wasn’t next to Gavin when he woke up.

  He eventually pulls himself up out of bed and meanders the house for a little while before something catches his eye; a bright pink sticky note on the television. He peels it off of where it’s been stuck and reads it.

_    Gavin,  
_ _    I went out to run an errand, I’ll be back shortly.  
_ _    Love,  
_ __    Nines

   Tch.  _ Fuckin’ sappy ass toaster _ . Gavin folds the note up and slides it into his pocket absently before going into the kitchen.

  He fills Ash and Domino’s food bowl and kneels beside them for a moment to give them both a scratch on the chin. They purr contently, and he pulls himself back up with a groan, stumbling a little on his feet, dizzy without caffeine.

  Coffee brews while he makes himself a bowl of cereal. He downs the entire bowl, milk and all before the coffee has finished and then pours the beverage into one of his favorite mugs. He got it from Elijah for Christmas the year he’d come out as gay. There was a rainbow cat on it, and it said ‘Purrride’. It was a purrrrized possession (ba dum tss).

  Looking at the mug reminds him of his brother, and so he checks his inbox. No missed calls, no voicemails, nothing. Elijah still hasn’t called him yet. That’s… a little depressing. He shoves his phone back in his pocket, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair. He doesn’t know why he expected any different. He’d hate him if he were Elijah, too. Fuck, he already hated himself. That’s kinda what made him shut his brother out in the first place.

  They aren’t brothers by blood, and even if they were, there was no excuse for what Gavin had done to Elijah. Even if they were blood and not water, Gavin was the thinnest blood in the world, metaphorically speaking. Elijah paid for damn near all of Gavin’s transition, paid for the entirety of his police academy tuition, and then Gavin dropped him out of nowhere like a bad habit. As he said all those months ago, he wouldn’t even be mad at Elijah if he never wanted to speak to him again. He definitely understood not wanting to be anywhere near Gavin Reed. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the choice not to be anywhere near Gavin Reed, given that he was Gavin Reed. God Nerfed him.

  He downs the rest of his coffee with a few more big gulps before standing and walking back over to the pot, pouring himself another cup. Sundays were always the worst, having to go to bed at an at least semi-decent time to wake up Monday morning for work. Sometimes, he wondered why he even stayed a cop. He had that promotion to Lieutenant recently, but before that, he’d been stagnant the last few years, stuck as a Detective. Maybe he just wanted to make sure Elijah hadn’t completely wasted his money.

He’s halfway through his third cup and his first cigarette of the day when he hears the front door open. Bryan must be home. He quickly puts the cigarette out in the ashtray in front of him, waving his hand through small clouds of smoke in an effort to get rid of the evidence. Nines always lectures him for smoking, but especially so inside. The apartment complex has a no smoking rule, after all. “Gavin, I’m home.”

  “Hey, Bry.” 

  “Are you smoking inside again?”

  “Nooo...”

  He can almost hear his partner rolling his eyes. “How long have you been awake?”

  “Little over a half hour, I think.” Gavin answers. He checks the time on his phone (11:58, but since he hadn’t checked the time when he woke up, knowing what time it was now didn’t help with that assessment). “What’d you have to go out and do this early on a Sunday morning? What, did you go to church or some shit?” He’s joking, of course. He’s never met an android who believes in God (not that he really knows all that many androids, to begin with). Connor and Nines (the only androids he knows) both say ‘rA9’ whenever referring to any kind of God. To this day, he’s still never gotten a straight answer as to who rA9 is, though Nines has said that many believe it’s Markus, the deviant leader. Still, there’s no way of knowing. 

  “Oh, hush.” Bryan snips back, no bite in his tone. “You know very well I don’t find joy sitting in a room full of delusional people.”

  It’s at that moment that Gavin hears another pair of footsteps from the living room. Immediately, he’s to his feet, sliding his chair in before walking briskly over to the doorway, and-

  He freezes.

  “Elijah…”

  Elijah Kamski is standing in his living room. His brother is standing in his living room. “Gavin.”

  Gavin swallows a lump in his throat, suddenly feeling the urge to run away. But why should he want to run away? He’d just checked a few minutes ago to see if the same man standing in front of him now had returned his call from over six months ago. He looks at Bryan, who provides no explanation; only nods his head, and turns to walk towards the back of the house, to their bedroom. “I’ll leave you two alone.”

  Gavin and Elijah both watch him walk away, before looking back at each other simultaneously. Gavin clears his throat. “Um… Do you want anything…?” He asks quietly. “Coffee, water?”

  “Anything would be fine.” His brother replies. 

  “Right, uh…” Gavin pauses awkwardly, brain turning to nervous goo in his head. “One minute, then… Uh, make yourself at home.”

  As Elijah goes to sit on the couch, Gavin walks back into the kitchen. His hands shake wildly at his sides, and he has to clench them into fists to convince his nerves into working with him. He was really hoping to ease into this, talk with Eli on the phone before talking to him in person. He was torn between being happy, frustrated, and scared.

  He pours a cup of coffee for Elijah and waits a few moments to build up some courage. He could do this. There wasn’t any reason for him to be acting like this. It was just his brother.

  His decade-long estranged, multi-millionaire step-brother… hah…

  Oh, rA9, he was gonna be sick.

  He soon walks back into the living room, despite himself, his own coffee mug and the one he got for Eli both in hand. He hands the mug to Elijah, who quietly thanks him before taking a sip while Gavin sits down next to him. They’ve sat pretty far away from each other, as far as they can. 

  A few moments of awkward silence passes, neither of them looking at each other while Elijah slowly sips from his mug, and Gavin holds his tightly in his hands, the skin turning whiter than usual from the pressure. He wants to disappear. Disappearing, though, is what got him to this point in the first place. Gavin is by no means a mature person, but… this time, he has to be, if he has any hope of having Elijah back in his life. And he  _ does _ want Elijah back in his life.

  He catches his brother’s lips tugging up at the corners in his peripheral vision and looks at him. “What?”

  “You kept it.” Eli gestures to the ‘Purrride’ mug held tightly in Gavin’s grip. He nods a little.

  “Yeah.” He replies unnecessarily.

  Silence falls back over them, somehow even more awkward than before. Gavin figures that, if this ends badly, he’s throwing Bryan in the tub with all his wires exposed. Fucking bastard, getting involved in something that had nothing to do with him.

  A few more seconds pass before his cats come striding up, each hopping up on the couch in between him and Elijah, and effectively stealing both of their attention. “Um, the white one, she’s named Domino. And the grey one, his name is Ash.”

  Elijah alternates petting both of them with his one free hand. “They’re cute.” He says, quite decidedly.

  “Yeah, but  _ SOMEONE _ ” Gavin looks in the direction of the hallway, “KEEPS GIVING THEM EXTRA TREATS LIKE A PUNK ASS.”

  “Bite me!” Is Bryan’s reply. Gavin regrets teaching him to be such an asshole. He already knew Connor learned from his environment, why hadn’t he been more careful around Nines? It was gonna be a pain in the dick now for however long the android decided to stick around. 

  Elijah chuckles. “I never thought I’d live to see the day I saw you getting along with an android.”

  “Well, uh, we’re dating, so…”

  Eli’s eyes widen a bit at that news, obviously shocked. “Who’s the robot fucker now?”

  “Both of us, I guess,” Gavin says, taking a long sip from his mug as Elijah laughs. 

  “I suppose that’s not false.” He says as soon as his laughter has died down. Gavin sets his mug on the coffee table. His fingers drum nervously on his legs for a few moments, working through the anxiety.  _ Come on, Gavin. It’s two little words. Just say it. _

  “... I’m sorry, ‘Lijah…” He hates how small his voice comes out, but commends himself on being able to actually look his brother in the eyes when he finally does. Elijah looks into his cup, and for a moment, Gavin expects the worst. He’s thought about this moment a lot, and every time he did, it always ended up with his brother going on a rant about how fucked up he was.  _ Why did you stop talking to me? Do you hate me? I did so much for you, and you just dropped me like old news. I hate you, Gavin. You’re such a horrible person. I hope you choke on a dic- _

  “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

  Oh. Well, that wasn’t what he was expecting. He blinked a few times in confusion, trying to wrap his head around that response. “What the fuck do you mean, ‘I have nothing to be sorry about’? I shut you out, man. You…” This was too many emotions too early in the day. God, he hates ~~loves~~ Bryan so much. “You helped me so much when no one else in the world gave a flying fuck about me, and I just  _ cut you off. _ ”

  Elijah shakes his head, still looking down in his cup. “No,” He says after a few moments. “No, I got absorbed in my work.”

  And now his brother is trying to pin the blame on himself when Gavin knows it’s his own damn fault. He knew what he was doing over ten years ago, when he moved into a different apartment building, changed his number, and basically went into hiding. He stopped talking to Elijah on purpose. Here his brother is, though, acting like he was the one who did all that. “I cut everyone off, ‘Lij.” He says. He still hates the way his voice cracks and wavers, especially hates the way he feels like a frayed nerve, exposed to the wind, but these things need to be said. He does wish, though, that he’d been able to finish that cigarette earlier. “Not just you. I was convinced no one wanted anything to do with me.” Another thought comes to mind. “And you left CyberLife years ago. There’s  _ no _ reason I couldn’t have reached out sooner.”

  “There’s no reason I couldn’t have reached out, either.” Elijah sighs. “And, anyway, I’m not much better. I’ve shut people out, too. You… obviously had a good reason to shut people out. I just wanted to be left alone.”

  “But you never should have been one of those people, ‘Lijah…”

  Elijah shrugs, looking thoughtful for a few moments before he replies. “I always thought you feared any reminder of your old life. Our old life. I only would have reminded you of before.”

  Fuck, this is all so much. “You were the only good part of that life.”

  Elijah sets his mug down, having finished his coffee. “And you were, too.” He pauses. “You were a great part of that life.”

  Gavin rubs at his eyes, trying to will the crocodile tears burning them to stay put. He takes a deep, shaky breath. “I hate myself, Eli. I convinced myself everyone else hated me, too. I was a dick. I stopped talking to you, and never even tried to tell you why.”

  “Fuck’s sake, Gavin,” Elijah mutters. “I could never hate you.”

  “I know, I just…” Gavin pauses, trying to think of how to explain it. “I couldn’t rationalize it. I projected my self-loathing onto everyone else, even if there wasn’t a cause, and… I projected it on to you, too… I never should have let you be one of those people. I’m sorry…”

  “It’s okay, Gavin. I forgive you.”

  Gavin had never been more relieved in his life to hear six words.

  Silence hangs over them for a few moments, before his brother speaks up again. “I worried about you, all the time.”

  “... Why?” Gavin asks.

  “You’re my brother,” Elijah replies, a sad sounding laugh wrapping around his words and making Gavin feel even worse about his decisions than before. “Hell, I started worrying about you the moment you became a cop. I always wanted to check in and make sure you were okay.”

  Gavin nods a little. Understandable. Police work was dangerous. There was always the chance Gavin wouldn’t be coming home at the end of the day. 

  In a show of rare sentimentality, he leans up against his brother. Elijah has always been a sentimental fool, so he’s less hesitant to wrap an arm around Gavin, and pull him close. They sit there for a moment in quiet, Domino and Ash chasing a cat toy, their nails scratching the wood floor as they scurried after it being the only thing to fill the void. 

  “... Remember that year we went as Power Rangers for Halloween…?”

  Elijah nods. “Of course. You wanted to be the green one, but your mom made you go as the pink ranger.”

  “She’s a fuckin’ bitch…” Gavin mutters spitefully.

  “She was.” Eli agrees.

  He looks up at Elijah. “Remember when we spray painted that douchey neighbor’s house?”

  “We couldn’t reach all the way up, so I put you on my shoulders.” Elijah laughs. “When the lights came on, we freaked out.”

  “I fell off your shoulders and broke my fucking nose, but we booked it the fuck outta there.”

  “The kid that used to pick on us at school got framed,” Elijah remembers with a smile. Gavin laughs.

  “Ah, we were little terrors.”

  “And now you arrest little terrors.” Elijah looks down at him with an amused expression. “You’re still a little shit yourself, though, aren’t you?”

  “Of course,” Gavin replies, quite confident. “Just ask Nines.” He looks at the hallway. “HEY, BRY, I’M A LITTLE SHIT, RIGHT?”

  “Undoubtedly so!”

  Elijah can’t help but have a laughing fit at that, and Gavin can’t help the grin that spreads across his face.

  “I’m glad you’re still a little shit.” ‘Lijah soon says. “Imagining you as a good person gives me goosebumps.” His face scrunches up, and he shudders jokingly. Gavin chuckles.

  “Same here. Though, uh, my toaster seems to be softening me up a little.”

  Elijah starts laughing even harder, so hard, in fact, that he doubles over. “You sure soften is the right word?” He asks between laughing. Gavin punches his arm lightly, which only makes Elijah laugh harder. 

  Eventually, his brother calms down, and Gavin clicks his tongue in mock annoyance before something else comes to mind. “Oh, by the way, do you like the facial hair? Only took six fucking years to grow in properly.” He still remembers having to shave every other week, wanting a beard desperately, but hating how patchy the shit always came in. 

  Elijah looks him over a few moments, a smile on his face. Gavin doesn’t need any fancy android scanners to see the pride in his older step-brother’s eyes, before he says, “It fits perfectly.” Elijah pauses to ruffle his hair before adding, “You really did grow up into a great man.”

  “Heh, thanks…” He’s a bit embarrassed, but he expected, after realizing his brother didn’t hate him, that he’d probably dote on him in one way or another before the day was done. Elijah had always been like that. His heart feels full from the happiness of being able to have this again, even if he’s a bit mad at himself still for making it not a thing, in the first place. “You still look like a fuckin’ cartoon bad guy.”

  “If I didn’t, you wouldn’t have recognized me, kiddo,” Eli says with a smile. 

  “You’re only three months older than me!”

  “You’re still a kid!” His brother nudges his arm. “I bet you still have a toy gun in your room.”

  “Do not.”

  “Are you sure?” Elijah asks. He cranes his head, looking somewhere in the hallway. Gavin spots where he’s looking basically instantly. A small, colorful thing attached to one of the walls by a suction cup. “‘Cause I  _ swear _ that’s a Nerf bullet over there.”

  “... Alright, first off, fuck you. I came here to have a good time, and I’m honestly feeling so attacked right now.” Of course, Elijah laughs at that, too. The perks of being born in Gen Z, other Gen Z-ers know all the same outdated memes from the 2010s that you do. Eli sighs happily. 

  “I missed this.” 

  “Me, too,” Gavin admits.

  The moment ends when ‘Lijah’s phone goes off. His brother slides it out of his pocket, and Gavin occupies himself with Domino, who’s hopped up on his lap sometime between now and her going bonkers with Ash over a toy skidding across the floor. 

  “Shit,” Eli mutters. “I’m sorry, Gavin. I have to go. I forgot that I have an appointment at 1:00.”

  “It’s fine,” Gavin says, patting Elijah’s shoulder awkwardly. Elijah stands to his feet.

  “Do you wanna meet up again soon? Maybe for some drinks?” He asks. “My treat.”

  “Yeah, I’d like that.” Gavin finds that, even though his time with his brother is about to be cut short, he can’t wipe the smile off his face. Years of baggage, what-if’s, and the lack of closure seem to have been lifted from his shoulders. 

  He walks his older brother over to the door, and they exchange phone numbers. “I’ll text you whenever I find some free time, and we can work out the details of our next rendezvous then.” He says, standing outside the doorway. “Oh. And, Gavin?”

  “Yeah…?” Gavin asks. 

  Elijah’s smile turns into a shit-eating grin. “Try not to break Bryan.”

  And then the fucker just walks away, and Gavin’s smile disappears. Fucking…

  “So, did you like the surprise?”

  Bryan slips up behind him, scaring the shit outta him. Gavin turns on his heels, fists raised, before calming down upon seeing it’s just his boyfriend. “Fucking Christ, dude, you need a goddamn bell.”

  “Mrew.” Nines meows at him monotonously.

  All jokes aside, Gavin steps closer, wrapping his arms around Nines’ neck before standing on his tip-toes and pecking him on the lips. “Thanks…”

  Bryan smiles down at him. “You’re welcome, my darling Gavin.”

**Author's Note:**

> I really need to stop writing shit at 6 in the morning when I should be sleeping


End file.
